TDP Leaders Split On Demonetization, Slams Centre

Despite the TDP in Andhra Pradesh encouraging cashless transactions and supporting the Centre on its decision to demonetize the two high value currency notes, TDP MLC and senior leader Gali Muddukrishnama Naidu voiced surprisingly dissimilar views on the same issue.

Speaking to the media, M Nadu gave out rather puzzling views and opined that instead of announcing taxing unaccounted money, the Centre should have had announced it would allow black money holders to keep 60% of their wealth, if they voluntarily declared their illegal assets.

Commenting on online transactions, the TDP leader claimed that only 2% of India was carrying out online transactions, and the country's literacy rate still stagnated at 65%.

"How can an illiterate villager or a farmer with no internet access carry out online transactions?" he asked, and explained figures of online transactions in countries including Singapore (61%), Netherlands (69%), Canada (57%), the United States of America (45%) and Australia (35%) and Japan only (14%).

Black money should obviously be decimated, but the general public should not face the brunt for that, Naidu suggested.

The Centre should have had taken the opinion of experts besides the RBI, which, by the way, was the reason behind the current cash crunch, he claimed.

Surprisingly, he also questioned the logic behind setting up the committee headed by Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu to study the aftermath of the demonetization.